best 16x port controler card?

[Mcavity]

It looks like I need a different controller card on my system.
I'm currently have a ASUS E35M1 Pro motherboard and a super micro AOC-Sat2-Mv8 [pci] [8 port sata]
however I'm running a norco 20 bay case and this system board only has 1 pci-e 16 slot.

However I'm getting checksum errors and repaired sectors off my 10 drives with this combo.

I'm looking for a 16-20 port sata/sas pci-e controller that works well with ZFS.

was looking at high point rocket raid controllers but people seem to have issues with them.. any other ideas?

 

[wussy]

Hi,

What about an LSI 9211_8i with the following Extender HP 468406-B21. Don´t have it running but i read about people who are up and running with this components after flashing the SAS Controller with the IT fimrware.

The LSI 9211 8i will cost about 240 Euro and the HP 468406-B21 about 250 euro (prices from amazon so I´m sure you can get them cheaper).


Best regards

 

[wussy]

Oh sry i didn´t see that you have only on pci port free. Maybe it´s cheaper when you get a new board with everything on it.
The Super Micro D-X8DI6-F-O costs about 290 Euro and is ready for 14 drives. When you need more than it should work with the HP card from above.
Shouldn´t be more expensive then getting a 16 port raid card.

 

[Mcavity]

Well after reading a bit I think I would prefer to avoid sas expanders if I can.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

It looks like I need a different controller card on my system.
I'm currently have a ASUS E35M1 Pro motherboard and a super micro AOC-Sat2-Mv8 [pci] [8 port sata]
however I'm running a norco 20 bay case and this system board only has 1 pci-e 16 slot.

However I'm getting checksum errors and repaired sectors off my 10 drives with this combo.

I'm looking for a 16-20 port sata/sas pci-e controller that works well with ZFS.

was looking at high point rocket raid controllers but people seem to have issues with them.. any other ideas?

16x card won't be fully utilized in your motherboard, it only will go up to 4x. I got an Asus e-350 motherboard also and just grabbed a used High Point RocketRAID 2640x4 from ebay for $46. Haven't tested it in FreeNAS yet but I'm 90% sure it will work.

On any RAID cards I suggest you flash a version of the bios that doesn't support any sort of RAID just to be safe. For that card I had to go to High Point's Chinese firmware download site because their USA site's link was down.
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/china/bios_rr2640x4c.htm - grab version 1.3LA and flash it in DOS


Also if your willing to pay, grab yourself 2x8GB DDR3 Ram; our motherboards secretly support it

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Noticed you have the Pro Model (as I do), you can throw more cards in your PCI-e and 2xPCI slots as well if you want to get closer to using your 20 bays.
6 on the motherboard (I'm using an esata to sata cable and routing it into the board)
4 from 2640x4 card
2 from this raid card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124027 (I've personnaly used on FreeNAS 8, make sure to flash nonraid bios)
and 2 x 4 from this raid card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124020

Thats 20 sata ports for less than $200, though those last 8 harddrives may be limited by PCI bandwith (not sure on this?)

 

[NAScake]

The Highpoint Rocketraid 2340 has worked well for me, drivers are in the stock install. Two builds with them and so for no complaints. I paid $300 for a pair on ebay.

~NC

 

[Atomic]

Hi,
I am using a LSI 3ware 9750-16i4e RAID Controller and it worked right out of the box. It's got 16 internal connectors and 4 external ports, all with 6Gb/s SAS/SATA3.

 

[Alfred Melvin]

I used a LSI SAS 9201-16i Host Bus Adapter and it worked out of the box as well. No need to flash anything just plug and go!!

 

[lpittman]

I used a LSI SAS 9201-16i Host Bus Adapter and it worked out of the box as well. No need to flash anything just plug and go!!

Same here, works excellent.

 

[Nik]

Would I need to configure JBOD for the HDDs or is there a non-RAID mode on the 9201-16i?

 

[crisman]

Hi All,

Not 100% sure but usually when we are talking about cards that are "Host Bus Adapter" like the LSI SAS 9201-16i, there is no Raid modes, disks are seen by the OS like individual JBOD, so there's no need to flash them. ;)

 

[Alfred Melvin]

When I first got the mentioned card, the lack of documentation was confusing. But Freenas had no issue once the system was up and running.